Roger
Rice is an African-American, ordained fundamentalist
preacher and visionary artist in the true sense of the word. In his
best work he takes as his subject matter the invisible world of spirits and
monsters -- horrendous, nightmarish, fiendish creations that one might expect
to flow from a Peter Bruegel or a Hieronymus Bosch. An over-riding sense of
the evil nature of humankind informs and unifies the body of work.
Since 1994, Rice has been serving a life sentence in the Mississippi penal
system.
From 1987 until his incarceration in 1994, Rice worked in oils on canvas. He created 42 paintings and, of that number, fewer than thirty remain. A foreboding mood pervades Rice's dark, ominous, erotic paintings. Other religiously inspired works are executed in a softer, lighter palette.
Now in prison, Rice is only allowed to create drawings in colored pencil, using 11" x 14" acid-free art paper. Each meticulously detailed drawing takes approximately one week to complete and is usually embellished with rich surface ornamentation. While most of the drawings reflect the artist's preoccupation with religion and the Bible, some are based on the prison life that he has observed first-hand, and fewer still are based on contemporary social or political issues Rice has knowledge of from news programs on the prison television.
As of January 14, 2000, a new prison administration issued orders that inmates in the facility where Rice is housed would no longer be allowed to produce art works and crafts and so he was unable to add to the body of his work. After an extended hiatus, Rice has now once again been allowed to resume his drawing.
Works by Roger Rice are included in numerous private collections. His paintings and drawings have been shown in exhibitions including "Unsigned, Unsung" (Florida State University in Tallahassee) as well as the "Coming Home!" exhibit (Memphis, New York City) which traces the work of contemporary self-taught artists influenced by evangelical Christianity in the southeastern United States.
References:
Contemporary American Folk Art (Rosenak 1996)
Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art (Sellen and Johanson 2000)
